Such a long time of not updating a blog either means really good news or really bad news. I am happy to report I have exciting news and new projects. In short, I started a new game company with a small group of talented people. More on that later this month. In this blogpost there is an overview of the activities of the last couple of months. I mostly worked on adjusting to post-PhD life, starting our company and doing interviews, writing columns and such.

My PhD was “reviewed” by dr. Linda Duits, a respected colleague from the Uni of Amsterdam. Read here review on De Jaap.nl or on her personal blog. More PhD-related coverage can be found at Eurogamer.nl where Erik Coenen wrote up an interview on game studies and my recent research.

Along the way I did several radio interviews:
- June 20, I talked to Eva Jinek at one of the longest running radio shows in the Netherlands: Oog op Morgen. This has always been bit of a dream to be there so do have a listen!
- June 22, I did a brief interview for Radio Wakker Nederland on my PhD, which can be heard here.
- June 30, an interview with NOS Radio 1 on the rise of Zynga and its possible IPO: “Gamewetenschapper over mogelijke beursgang maker Farmville“.
- July 11, a 60 minute discussion at BNR Business Radio on game journalism.
- July 20, an interview with Alexander Klöpping and Ernst-Jan Pfauth for their onetime nightly radio show. We talked about game journalism! You can download the .mp3 here (and remember, I was on at 2:40 at night!).

There is more I did on game journalism the last couple of months. Niels ‘t Hooft and I hosted a debate June 30 at De Waag. There is a review of the debate here, a brief video of the event, and there are photos over at Flickr. Over at Villamedia, journalist and author Nick Kivits wrote an extended piece on game journalism as well, worth a read!

In the meantime I wrote my bi-weekly column for nrc.next:
- “De gamer in mij wil punten, geen geld”. In: nrc.next. 2 september, p28.
- “Haat voor Bobby“. In: nrc.next. 15 augustus, p28.
- “Het kopieerprobleem“. In: nrc.next. 27 juli, p24.
- “Crunchtijd“. In: nrc.next. 15 juli, p29.
- “Games voor alle vrienden; Nieuwste hit: ‘Empires & Allies’“. In: nrc.next. 5 juli, p10. Met: Stijn Bronzwaer.
- “Dertig dagen maïs planten, naar olie boren en af en toe vechten“. In: nrc.next. 5 juli, p10.
- “Game-onderzoek is vers“. In: nrc.next. 29 juni, p12.
- “Geef een 8.5, krijg jij een reisje; Gamejournalisten worden aan alle kanten gepaaid door grote gamebedrijven“. In: NRC & nrc.next. 28 juni, p12.
- “Het is nog even afwachten met de nieuwe Wii U”. In: nrc.next. 16 juni 2011, p24.

In the world of academia there is news as well. I presented a paper in March on seriality in games. A rave review of the conference and my paper can be read here: »To be continued…«: Seriality and Serialization in Interdisciplinary Perspective.

Early July, for the Dutch blog Flabber I did a video interview on my (game) research, check out the video (or download the podcast) here.

And last but not least, mid-July I did a talk on gamification for Netwerk 023 (in Haarlem). There is a blog post and review on the talk, my presentation can be downloaded here, and a lot of pictures.

Next month I’ll do three talks. One on October 4 social media for Studium Generale (Universiteit Utecht), a talk on games and criminality at the VU (Free University of Amsterdam), and a talk October 5 on the ‘dark side’ of IT and games.

It have been two busy months since handing in my PhD. I travelled to San Antonio, Texas to deliver a paper on game journalism and then headed to Tampere, Finland, to talk about my PhD. I also did some lectures and talks in Delft, Amsterdam and Utrecht. See the list here. In the meantime a short text I wrote on the future of the book was published:

- 2011. Nieborg, David B. “Achievement Unlocked!”. In: Mieke Gerritzen, Geert Lovink and Minke Kampman (eds.). Read Where I Am: Exploring New Information Cultures. Valiz: Amsterdam, pp. 117-118.

I did a radio interview May 23 for VARA Radio 1 on my PhD. It was quite a long discussion which covered a lot of ground. You can watch the video of our chat after the break. You can download the mp3 here as well.

More recently my PhD got some more attention via a press release, which can be read here. The press release was picked up by some blogs and maybe a newspaper here or there. There will be more attention, I hope and expect, around the actual defense.

My bi-monthly column for the Dutch newspaper nrc.next (called Next Level) was also published. I have put them all online for your reading pleasure:
- “Gefluister over Warfare“. In: nrc.next. 31 mei 2011, 24.
- “Dat lossen we samen op“. In: nrc.next. 13 mei 2011, p12.
- “Sony Playstation gehackt: gegevens liggen op straat“. In: nrc.next. 28 april 2011, 10
- “Een link tussen games en schietpartijen? Onzin“. In: nrc.next. 14 april 2011, p10.
- “Oorlog is als een game. En iedereen speelt mee“. In: nrc.next. 29 maart 2011, p24.
- “Wij geven er niets aan uit“. In: nrc.next. 17 maart 2011, p25.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last update has been a while. Last weeks I have been working 24/7 on my PhD and I am very happy to report that it is shaping up nicely. Just a couple more days (yes days!!) and I can announce here and wherever I have a material or immaterial presence that my PhD is done (meaning: mailed to my PhD commission). I have a date set for my PhD defense in late June, but I’ll announce the exact date and time when I have actually finished my dissertation. Yes, I am very superstitious.

As sort of a preparation for my post-PhD time I became a columnist for the Dutch newspaper nrc.next. I will do a bi-monthly column on games (together with Niels ‘t Hooft) which will be featured irregularly (probably Wednesdays). I will post links of my columns here of course and they will be syndicated on Bashers.nl as well (the day after they appeared in the paper).

The first column was on Dutch gamers, well, begin Dutch (cheap that is): We zijn zuinig, ook bij games – Nederlanders geven bijna niets uit in de virtuele wereld. The second column was my take on the “war” (note the brackets) on/in Libya and how many see it as being “very much like a videogame”. The second column is syndicated at Netkwesties where it has a slightly different title: “Sarkozy 1 – Gadaffi 0”.

In the last couple of weeks, I have done quite some interviews for TV and print. Let me list them here:

- February 2, interview for RTL Nieuws on the launch of Killzone 3 and the status of console blockbusters (actually this is very much what my PhD is all about). You can watch the clip here. There’s a summary here on the RTL website, which has me saying:

“Het gaat juist hartstikke goed met de game-industrie. Maar de traditionele grote game op een schijfje is wel op z’n retour.”

- February 25, I was quoted in an interview in de Saturday edition of De Volkskrant in a very good and well research article titled “Drie Nederlandse ontwikkelaars maken kans op internationale prijs”. I argued:

‘Dit is the place to be’, zegt David Nieborg, gameonderzoeker aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. ‘Wanneer je zo’n prijs in de wacht sleept, staan de uitgevers voor je in de rij om je game op te pikken voor bijvoorbeeld de iPhone.’ Alleen games van kleine onafhankelijke studio’s, die de grenzen opzoeken, worden genomineerd. ‘Het is een tegenhanger van de commerciële game-industrie die juist heel conservatief is. Drie nominaties is een hele eer voor een klein landje als Nederland.’

- March 1, live radio interview for Villa VPRO (Radio 1) on the Dutch indie game scene: “Nederlanders groots in ontwikkelen games”. Download the .mp3 here.

- Late March. I was interviewed for the Dutch magazine Nieuwe Revu on the success of Angry Birds. The article is online here “Boze vogels worden stinkend rijk: de ontwikkelaar over het megasucces van Angry Birds”.

- March 26. For the weekend edition of the leading Dutch daily NRC I had an interview on the never ending rise of the military entertainment complex. The article was accompanied by a very nice graphic. You see (and hopefully) read the interview via this photo.

And to top it all off, yesterday I did the keynote speech at the opening event for Academy Noord on social media. My talk was titled “De hype voorbij”. The room was packed and enthusiatic, see this unedited Twitter feed for realtime feedback on my talk. And wanna see what they have to say about the event and me in Frysian, check out this Youtube clip.

Pretty quiet here (still). This means I’m not done with my PhD (yet). But in the meantime I did a talk at Spui 25 “Tussen fysiek en virtueel: een discussie over het digitale spel”.

Also I did some stuff for Bashers.nl. I participated in a podcast “Bashers Podcast seizoen 3, aflevering 7: Kinect, Black Ops, gameverslaving” and then there were three op-ed pieces:
- De confronterende merkwaarden van Call of Duty
- Online rollenspel: Fan of journalist?
- ‘Het is maar een spelletje’: de wet van Godlose

For the research/consultancy agency Het Instituut I wrote a piece on (the future of) play: “Samen en overal: terug naar de kern van spelen”. The 5mb .pdf file is here, see page 17.

And today I did an interview about the ongoing Wikileaks controversy and gave a short statement on online organizations (particularly the group Anonymous who is responsible for attacking Mastercard, Paypal and others): “Wie is of zijn Anonymous?”.

December 22 there is an event during which I’ll give a (very brief) talk on games, together with some very groovy other people (designers, game journalists and others). See: Ignite Amsterdam 4.

For Havana, the magazine for the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, I did an interview on the use of new/social media in higher education. Titled “Niet zo handig met knopjes”, you can download the .pdf here (see page 18). In short, there’s much to be done. Especially is you consider that there is such an overlap between the affordances of new media and the core business of what “we” academics do (sharing knowledge and information). I argue:

“Er gaapt echter een groot gat tussen de dagelijkse onderwijspraktijk en de wensen van de jongere generatie”

In addition, I did an interview for iPhoneclub.nl on the rivarly between Apple and Nintendo: “Nintendo wankelt nog niet, maar voelt hete adem van Apple”. I talk about Nintendo’s business strategy and culture and I argue that the Nintendo 3DS launch is an important moment to see if the company can continue its winning streak:

“Hij ziet de lancering van de Nintendo 3DS als ijkmoment. ‘Dat zal februari of maart zijn. Dan wordt het spannend. Zijn mensen bereid meer te betalen? Je moet de aandelenkoers in de gaten houden. Gaat het goed, dan heeft Nintendo laten zien dat het het nog kan.”

In the meantime I became an expert at Netkwesties.nl, a website with expert opinions on topical web related issues.

And to structure my contributions to Bashers.nl a bit more, I will write a op-ed piece based on game related news every other week. The first article reflects on the debate I contributed to at the Royal Dutch Academy of the Sciences on serious games: “Het is hoog tijd voor een ’serious hype’”

As with every academic publication, I am excited, honored and very happy! I contributed a book chapter to an edited volume called “Professional playground: Alles over werken in de game-industrie”. In the chapter I talk about working as a game journalist (in the Netherlands) and critically reflect on being positioned between (the expectations of both) readers and the game industry. As far as I know, this might be the first academic publication in Dutch on the subject (just saying, for many gamers on message boards being “First!!11oneoen” is a major achievement).

Talking about firsts, the book is one of the few books (in Dutch) on games, but also one of the few books on working in the game industry. There is some work done on working in the game industry (e.g. by Mark Deuze in his book on Media Work & his edited volume Managing Media Work), but none of that is in Dutch or from a Dutch perspective.

The book has three parts (developer, publisher and support/related industries), and has a wide range of authors (working in the industry, in academia, and lawyers). There is a .pdf of the chapter outline here, and chapter 9 on serious game is the sample chapter (in .pdf as well).

If you’re interested in buying the book, you can do so on Bol.com. If you are interested in my chapter, drop me an email (david @ gamespace . nl) and I’ll send you my latest draft.

As part of a special summer project, we did an extra Bashers podcast with (Dutch) Microsoft country manager Paul Naber. It turned out to be a very worthwhile conversation with the five of us talking about all things Xbox. Paul was very generous with his time and comments and I really enjoyed our discussion. Go check it out: “In gesprek met Xbox-baas Paul Naber over Microsoft, Xbox 360, Kinect en meer“.

As part of a pilot project, I wrote a review of Apple’s iPad (from the perspective of an academic/PhD student). I am very happy with the device and it is particularly useful to read books/PhD theses/articles. The review (with some pro’s and con’s and a couple of apps I like) is downloadable as a .pdf here (3 pages in Dutch).

*update* (July 10) Democracy in action! Dutch member of parliament Tofik Dibi (of Groen Links) asked the minister of justice a series of (very spot on) questions. Our combined efforts (of gamers, academics and journalists) to argue for better media literacy among parents (and against censorship), seem to have made a difference! Read the questions here. */update*

Our Dutch minister of justice Hirsch Ballin send a letter to the “Tweede Kamer” (the House of Representatives) regarding the banning of violent video games. His letter is emblematic of a (political) culture in which key politicians are utterly media illiterate and build their arguments on selectively quoting solid research. On top of that, a ban on violent film would be less desirable because that would lead to civil unrest (as opposed to games?). Well, I/we obviously disagree.

At Bashers, there’s more information. I wrote an op-ed to ask gamers to have their voices heard. “Neem contact op met Hirsch Ballin en bewijs dat een verbod op gewelddadige games weerstand oproept“.

At game industry magazine Control there is a crucial piece of information (of prof. Jansz) slamming the minister’s letter.

And at Petities.nl there’s a petition to sign.

I have to come up with better titles for these updates… Anyway, another sort of bi-monthly update. Still working on my PhD, progressing well, end date is set at Q4 of this year. In the meantime I did some miscellaneous writing/talking, listed below.

For Bashers.nl I wrote another “Uitgelezen”, a book review on a game related book. This installment is Osamu Inoue’s “Nintendo Magic, Winning The Videogame Wars” (2010). In addition, I did participated in this season’s last podcast “Bashers Podcast seizoen 2, aflevering 34: seizoensoverzicht”. We talk about game journalism, E3 and new game platforms. For your information, you can subscribe to the podcasts via iTunes (they are in Dutch though).

For MM Nieuws (Dutch magazine on management and marketing for the creative industries), I wrote a piece on social media and gamers, arguing that the game industry in many ways is quite adapt at facilitating user created content, or at least in many instances not regulating it as much as the movie or music industries. The piece is for subscribers only, but I put up a .pdf here of the unedited version. If you’re a subscriber, there’s more on the MM website.

In plaats van consumenten te zien als veredelde pinautomaten, als een eindpunt in de keten van productie, distributie en tenslotte consumptie, worden gamers massaal aangemoedigd vooral met games aan de slag te gaan. Parodieer maar, maak maar flmpjes, plaatjes en verhalen over de game die je zo tof vindt. En deel ze, met behulp van social media, vooral online met je vrienden en vriendinnen!

For the University of Amsterdam weekly magazine (Folia) I wrote a column on innovative ICT use at the university. I found that, to put it mildly, it is very hard to, for example, gain access to the wireless network and to be able to use ICT productively at my office. Got some reactions from university staff (agreeing with me), so I hope the ICT policies change for the better, if only for future generations of students. The piece is here: “Vooroplopen heeft een hoge prijs” (.pdf, see page 8).

Voor een iPad-gebruiker is het digitale leven aan de UvA een kafkaëske nachtmerrie. Waarom faciliteert ICT eigenlijk alleen de Windowsgebruiker?

Critical Gamer did an exstensive interview about idealism in the game industry, and game journalism in particular. In the interview I talk about the ‘problem’ of games journalism, the ‘games journalism lifestyle’ and what games journalism should be. The interview was done by Utrecht University student Snezana Nedeski and can be found here.

For Bashers I wrote a book review on “The race for a new game machine: creating the chips inside the Xbox 360 & the Playstation 3″. Concluding:

Heb je het geduld om door de halfbakken managementtips en de verhalen over slapeloze nachten van Shippy en Phipps heen te lezen, dan biedt The race for a new game machine de broodnodige verdieping om eerdere en toekomstige hardwareontwikkelingen binnen de gamesindustrie net weer iets beter te kunnen duiden. En met Natal en Move voor de deur is dat alles behalve een overbodige luxe.